


Down in a Hole

by 5CurrensCumAxicia5



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Non-Canon Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 02:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13672338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5CurrensCumAxicia5/pseuds/5CurrensCumAxicia5
Summary: Fleeing a gunman in New Canton, Runner Five and Moonchild develop a bond while hiding in a coal cellar. Spoilers up to and including "It’s Raining Again" S3M39.Comments of all kinds welcome.





	Down in a Hole

**Author's Note:**

> * This is a very early attempt and I am fully inviting criticism. *

 

How long had it been two hours, three? In spite of the hoard shuffling and scraping above, only two of the four survivors remained awake. With most of the torches off, long shadows were free to grope across the walls and floor. Tiny scrolls of vines had been meticulously painted on the sides of a clay pot. A measure of leaves steeped in water that had been heated over a little camping stove. The tea’s earthy, woody perfume did little to banish the cellar’s quality of must and coal dust. The spectral moan of whale song from the ancient looking speaker only added to the sense of unreality in the wake of a terrifying and yet routine flight from danger.

“Have you always been so uncommunicative? I don’t think that you’ve said a single word all day.” She brushed an errant tress of hair from her face, tucking it roughly behind an ear before bringing a steaming porcelain vessel to her lips. “I’d like to know you better Five, I’d like us to be friends.” Her companion, still damp with sweat from the day’s pursuit, let out a long, slow sigh before allowing their eyes to meet. It was not hard for her to see the aura of weariness about this runner beyond that which would be brought on by simple exertion. Still, they remained awake, one tense and alert the other seemingly careless of the danger. “Relax, loosen up a little. Let some of that bad chi out. Come on Five, what were you up to when the world went all topsy turvey upside down?”

The runner turned to examine what must have been a compelling crack in the wall. For a moment it didn’t seem that Five had even heard the question, then a levee broke or maybe the gate opened. “I was working. Sometimes when I think about those days it’s all I can remember doing. It was another life. I’m sure that you remember how it was. People were nervous when the news started reporting on a viral outbreak but there was no real panic or concern. Then the riots started, at least we all thought that it was riots. We were so fatally stupid. It wasn’t until the phones and lights and internet went out that this place really went to hell. It was all so quick. The world was gone before we knew what happened, and faster than we could tell anyone about it.”

The runner again turned from the woman and seemed to ponder something many miles away. “When it really went sideways everyone started just leaving. I don’t think that most of them knew where they were going, just that they had to somehow get out, to go somewhere. I was no different. The only thing I wanted was to get back home so with no plan for how to get there and no idea of what to do once I did, I took those first few steps outside.”

“I’d seen people out of control before, lots of times really, but this was different. Nobody knew what it was back then, just that… they were clawing and biting each other. It wasn’t like an angry mob or even animals. It was lunacy, bedlam and I waded into it. Like everyone else, I had to go. I thought that if I could just get home that everything would be fine, that it would all be OK. Someone was going to come help us.”

She sipped and the runner spoke. “I didn’t get far before I realized that my car was useless. I took what I thought I’d need from the back and walked. You learn things when the world is burning all around you and you’re running for your life, things like exactly how little you’re actually able to run for your life or how hungry you get when refrigeration is no longer an option. I mostly walked back then but rarely got far. Everywhere you looked someone was screaming or worse, shuffling along all the while making that wet, throaty sound.”

“It’s funny how things you’ve picked up over the course of a lifetime come in handy when you least expect them to. I’d heard about island hopping from my grandfather who learned about it first hand while he was in the army. Who’d have thought that one day I’d be doing just that, finding a safe place only to stay barely long enough to find another spot that was a little bit closer to where I was headed. Sometimes I slept in a car, sometimes a building. I’m sure that I had climbed more trees that month than I ever had as a child. Those were the worst. You just had to wait for something to distract the zombies before you could move on but the whole time you knew that they knew you were there reaching for you with their filthy hands. I was so afraid that I’d fall asleep or lose my grip. It could all be over so quickly and I’d be torn to pieces like…”

The pair turned, started by a nearby crash and the sound that only comes from slick bones scraping against a heavy door. Only one of the sleepers stirred and the runner had to wonder how Bernard had survived for so long and remained so soft, so untouched by it all. The runner silently chastised the notion but nonetheless, in that moment could not help but marvel at some people’s knack for helplessness and making their wellbeing someone else’s problem. The utter hubris of calling themselves the Permanent Advisory Council, as if anything could be considered permanent now. The runner said none of this out loud of course. What good would it have done anyway? Even now, politicians were the same as before. Taking care of themselves in the name of the public good. The Major, Janine even Sam in his own way, they weren’t like that. For all their shortcomings and quirks, they were, before all other things, protectors and pragmatists. They knew when something needed to be done and then they acted.

There was another hard crash and more of that moist rasping, but the door stood bravely. After a time the scrabbling ebbed. Shadows still reached beneath the door along with the sweet and sickening miasma of rot. Fighting back the tiniest remnants of an urge to be sick, the runner mused and then whispered, “They have an odor that gets in your nostrils and sticks to your clothes. Small wonder that we don’t all smell like that all the time. Maybe we do but don’t notice. Maybe we just don’t care anymore.” So many things seem petty now.

The scraping footfalls, grew softer and more distant. The pair that remained awake maintained a silent vigil that stretched on until words again began pouring unbidden from the runner’s lips. “You know that you’re going to get thirsty or hungry or tired or something. There was no way out and few places to go. You had to keep moving but you couldn’t keep moving. There was, is, always a tide of them in the way and there’s nothing you can do about it.” The runner was again seated on the stone ground, knees pulled protectively close and back pressed against one of the thick grey walls. “I’m a terrible, selfish person you know. I’d sometimes crouch in a hiding place hoping that some poor fool would wander out into the street and become a meal for those things just so I could move on from the rat hole I had crawled into for safety, as if my life was so much more valuable. All of that was bad, but the worst was watching what the end of the world did to the people that survived through it.”

“I’m not talking about becoming one of the undead. I’m talking about what people would do to each other when things really went down the shitter. So many just became predators or victims. If you were lucky enough to spot someone who wasn’t already bitten you were afraid to get near, especially if you had anything at all with you that could be considered useful. At some point, I don’t remember when, I had picked up a back pack and a few other supplies that I hid as best as I could but I knew that if I was caught by the wrong types I’d be lucky to escape alive much less with my few possessions. I did manage to get near a few people, usually by accident, but they were so broken.” The pregnant silence stretched out between them. A trickle of water from some pipe veiled by the dimness was the only sound. Even the creatures above them seemed to wait breathlessly for the runner’s next words.

“With the breakdown of society, so many of these animals realized that there would be no consequences to their actions. There weren’t any more laws and even if there were, who was left to make sure that people followed them? Of course there were the heavy drinkers and near suicidal thrill seekers but what’s worse were the things that people did to each other just because they could. Some must have seen the apocalypse as a once in a lifetime opportunity to indulge every last awful impulse before they died. I’m not even talking about violence or stealing to survive. I’m talking about evil. The zombies didn’t have a choice. These were a different kind of monster.”

”There was this girl. I don’t know how old she was. She was so small and filthy, a walking bruise. I didn’t even notice her right away when I locked myself away for the night in the back room of that second hand book store. Who knows how long she had been there. I started to apologize for invading her place but I don’t think she ever heard a word that I said. She just watched me like a cornered mouse watches a cat and whispered the word ‘please’ whenever I moved too near or too quickly. I stayed for two days trying everything I could think of to convince her that I was harmless. I never could get her to say anything more but the dried stains on her clothes and where that rust color had come from told their own story. She had lived through things that nobody should ever have to. With everything that’s happened it’s still that wide eyed, terrified face that I see late at when I close my eyes at night. I made some progress with her. She wasn’t talking but she had started to eat the few tiny morsels that I could scrape together. I tried to make those idiots to stop when they broke the window to get in, to make them understand what they were doing. It was too late. The act couldn’t be undone. She just lost her grip on whatever tiny thread of sanity she was still holding on to. She ran away from the noise, away from me, into the open and right at those things. It almost seemed like she did it on purpose. Maybe she did. Even then only the smallest sound from her. I wish that… no, I can’t play that game. Just one more log for the human wood chipper, right? I hope that whoever did that to her suffered. How’s that for bad karma? What does that notion say about me? Does it even matter anymore?”

“I never learned her name.”

With a deep sigh and a light chuckle the runner’s eyes met those of his companion. “So I made it home. Hooray for me. I don’t really know what I expected to find there. I almost didn’t go in. What if they were dead or what if they weren’t people anymore? How could I go on knowing that I wasn’t there when they needed me most? I opened the door. You know what’s worse than finding the people you care about dead in your home after days and weeks of trying to get back to them through all of all this insanity? It’s getting home and finding nothing. The house was pristine, like I had just left a few hours ago. There was nobody there, not a note, nothing. Outside it was the end of days, but in there, it was all so normal and that’s what was made it a nightmare. It could have been a museum piece in one of those historic village houses. Right there in front of me contained and on display, was all that was lost.”

“You understand don’t you? You can’t help but think about all the possibilities. The good outcomes seem so remote. They barely seem possible. I had no difficulty at all imagining terrible scenarios. You can’t even grieve because you don’t know if you should. I was alone with nowhere to go and nobody to look to and I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be so bad to just stop living right then and there.”

In the dying torchlight time slid by. The woman delved deep into a pack searching for a fresh set of batteries. She then spoke for the first time in what felt like hours. Her tone was different now, sharper and less flighty. In the murk it seemed that for the briefest of moments her lips curled into a form less addled than before and her eyes showed a spark of intelligence unfettered by mind altering substances. “I… I just wish that I could find a way to make you happy, Five. Everyone deserves happiness. Everyone. Even… especially you.

Are you sure that you won’t have some tea?”


End file.
